Friday the foundation was poured. The whole schedule was surprisingly precise; I mean you see these guys in these big trucks, looking pretty sloppy, like a Hardee's commercial somehow, but what you don't know is that they're usually right where they're supposed to be. It's all part of this giant lumbering beast that is the construction process where the guy in the boom truck needs to get there exactly a few minutes before the concrete mixer, who is usually at some other job until precisely 3:00, and has to get this job done by 4:00 to go to another job.... So this boom truck, with its extend-o-trunk concrete hose shows up and - no joke - has 'schwing' painted all over it. Who along the management chain gave this the green light?

Anyway... Glenn Turner & Johnny from Thermacrete poured the concrete into the ICF forms to make the foundation walls. If you haven't heard of it before, ICF is pretty much the love child of a beer cooler and a concrete masonry unit (see gallery), so naturally we like it. The foam formwork stacks up like legos, then stays in place to provide a pretty high insulation value. The concrete we used is a 30% fly ash mixture which is apparently crazy kinds of sustainable for reasons I will let the fly ash industry explain, but alas is NOT made out of the ashes of flies.A minor blowout in one of the ICF forms provided the drama for the day, but everyone* stayed cool and collected. For my part, I reacted by attempting to fall into (perhaps through?) the foundation and surrounding deathmoat, but only managed to drop a couple of Michael's lenses into the footing (oops!). Michael's grandfather Dick on the other hand made several impressive leaps across the footing/foundation.After the pour Dick, Richard (Hollyport Ventures), and Michael (rmichaelcross | Design Group) - heretofore known as 'Los Tres Cruces' - scurried around with tape measures and old 2x4s and helped the Thermacrete gentlemen shim some of the forms into place. Finally we put Glenn Turner's pocket change into the wet concrete, because Italians in Long Island do this. Take THAT Freemasons!As of today, the first floor engineered lumber has been ordered and the mason is onsite laying the face brick around the foundation. We're hoping to get a couple of renderings up to show what this thing is supposed to turn into, so stay tuned.

*not everyone

| ETM

Thanks for reading. We'd love to hear comments, questions or suggestions either in the comments section or you can email us at blog@rmichaelcross.com

Under the direction of architect R. Michael Cross, LEED AP, Hollyport Ventures LLC is rehabilitating a home at 4600 Augusta Ave, in the City of Richmond.This 1938 structure, built many years before most of the practices promoted by the LEED for Homes program were created, poses many challenges. The goal of the “Augusta Project” is to renovate this home to meet the Gold certification level of the LEED for Homes program. By doing so, it will demonstrate that high levels of sustainable design are achievable in simple home additions and are accessible to the average homeowner.